the murder nerds

Game Tools

Sometimes managing all the rules, monsters, items (and players) is hard work. These things make it easier.

Kobold Fight Club

A really great 5e ‘encounter builder’ that calculates challenge rating, XP etc, and can then be used to manage the encounters (rolling initiative, tracking HP, etc). Contains everything from the monster manual, and is sortable by CR, alignment, environment and more. Brilliant site!

Spell Sorter

Allows you to sort spells by class, level, type, etc. And has a short description too. Just a shame it’s in the form of an excel workbook – I’d prefer something web-based.

Character Sheet Android App

There’s a lot of character sheet apps, but this is my favourite. It’s pretty simple and clear, but contains basically everything you need to put a character together and track it through the game. The only thing missing is a spell list…

Spell List Android App

Handy! I really like this one: it let’s you sort by class, level, school etc, it contains all spells from all the books, and you can collect them in ‘spell books’ for a particular character and track castings, spells slots etc through it.

Unearthed Arcanca

Wizards release these on their website approximately monthly. They’re generally variant rules or new class/race options. Some are a bit crap (Psonics rules) while some are much more creative (modern magic), but they’re all interesting.

Eberron

I’ve never played an Eberron setting, but the new classes and options look cool. The ‘artificer’ wizard looks particularly interesting – allowing you to make your own magic items and potions.

Modifying Classes

Here’s how to make new classes or class options, without completely breaking the game. The magicless ranger is one of my favourites.

Waterborne Adventures

A whole bunch of watery class options. I love the Swashbuckler Rogue and the Storm Sorcerer (now official in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide).

Modern Magic

How to turn 5e into Shadowrun. That either sounds like the best or worst idea ever. I’m going with best.

HomeBrew

The 5e community is amazing, and keeps producing loads of cool homemade ideas. These are some of my favourites.

Scholar Class

An Int-based non-caster. Depending on the options chosen, either a scientist, explorer or doctor. Looks really good, I’m just a little dubious that it might be massively overpowered.

Noble Class

A Cha-based non-caster (non-fighter?). Sort-of ridiculous, especially the ‘Path of Heart’ (literally a non-combatant). But I think it would work really well in a roleplay-heavy campaign. [NB this is funded through Patreon, so you need to chip them some money to access it]

Shaman Class

A Wis-based caster. A lot like a druid, but with a connection to spirits rather than nature. A nice, well thought-out class.